February 4, 1921] 



SCIENCE 



111 



the partial scientific basis of mental 

 hygiene. 



It is the conviction of the writer that 

 urgent need exists for pioneering in psy- 

 chobiology as a basic medical science. It 

 has already been suggested that this pio- 

 neering should be done in a medical en- 

 vironment, for by taking the matter into 

 its own hands the medical faculty should 

 be able to secure, more quickly and satis- 

 factorily than otherwise, those develop- 

 ments and applications of psychobiology 

 which are clearly desirable. It will not 

 suffice to meet the general needs of medi- 

 cine, if psychopathology instead of, rather 

 than in addition to, the more inclusive 

 discipline psychobiology, is established in 

 leading medical schools. For it is quite 

 as improbalble that the medical student 

 will acquire adequate training in psycho- 

 biology during his premedieal years as 

 that he will acquire similarly adequate 

 training in physiology or in anatomy. 



There are three important possibilities 

 with respect to the administrative rela- 

 tions of psychobiology in medical schools. 

 The subject may be treated as a part of 

 physiology, it may be established inde- 

 pendently, or it may be associated with 

 neurology and psychiatry. For the sake 

 of its development as a fundamental dis- 

 cipline, it would appear preferable to have 

 it either associated with physiology or 

 given an independent status during the 

 experimental stage of its development in a 

 medical environment. To place it with 

 physiology would tend to lessen adminis- 

 trative problems and to simplify the or- 

 ganization of instruction and arrange- 

 ments for research, but, on the other hand, 

 it should be recognized that the clinical 

 relations of psychobiology are likely to be 

 much more numerous and compelling than 

 those of physiology and to make it more 

 and more truly the connecting link be- 



tween physiology and psychiatry. For 

 the former subject, it must always appear 

 as a logical extension of its field of inter- 

 est; for the latter, as an essential part of 

 its scientific basis. 



Robert i\I. Yerkes 



National Research Council, 

 Washington, D. C. 



SCIENTIFIC EVENTS 

 MEDICAL EDUCATION IN CHINAi 



Eecent reports state that in all China there 

 are found to be less than 2,000 physicians. 

 What a small proportion of the population of 

 400,000,000 Chinese people can receive scien- 

 tific treatment in case of illness or injury! 

 In an effort to ascertain the exact number of 

 students looking toward medicine, if not also 

 to stimulate the youth of China to look toward 

 the practise of medicine, a survey has recently 

 been made of the middle schools of China. In 

 153 of the institutions reporting, there are 

 36,095 students, and of these 1,153 stated that 

 they were planning to study medicine. Since 

 this is only about 20 per cent, of all middle 

 schools, the total number who may enter on 

 the study of medicine will be considerably 

 larger. 



The Rockefeller Foundation is said to have 

 abandoned its purpose of erecting at Shanghai 

 a great medical school similar to the Union 

 Medical College at Peking. This decision is 

 said to be due to the fact that in its initial 

 session the college had a class of only seven 

 students, although $6,000,000 had been ex- 

 pended for its construction and maintenance. 

 This small attendance is said to be due to the 

 fact that the medical course is given in the 

 English language and that only a small num- 

 ber of the universities and schools in the 

 neighborhood of Peking emphasize their 

 courses in English. The situation is said to 

 be quite different at Shanghai, where English 

 is more generally taught, which will insure 

 larger numbers of Chinese medical students. 



In order to provide a clear field when a large 



1 From the Journal of the American Medical 

 Association. 



